


Communication

by xt1me



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, No Dialogue, could be read as platonic, spoilers for Lisa Hallett
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2018-06-09 02:02:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6884773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xt1me/pseuds/xt1me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By the 51st century the human race is psychic</p>
            </blockquote>





	Communication

By the 51st century the human race is psychic. Oh, it’s not how the pioneering science fiction authors imagined it. They won’t all be telepaths or have hive minds. It simply that fact that, just as you could get people who can sing an opera to people completely tone deaf, the psychic range of the human race ran the gauntlet. Not just telepaths and empaths but powers the minds of the past couldn’t conceive. Everyone had something, and in the wide and weird universe it helped to communicate with all the different races and species out there. Even with the species with no psychic potential whatsoever there could at least be physical intimacy. Which might explain the reputation humans received by then (well, besides the main reason of ‘so many species, so little time’).

But everyone had some ability, even if for most it was just another layer of communication. Just as tone of voice changed the meaning of words and body languages added something else, psychic tone addend another layer most didn’t bother to even think about.

 

The man who would one day be known as Captain Jack Harkness was on the low end of the psychic scale. All time agents were. Sending a sensitive to an era where everyone was head blind was asking for psychic shock.

But even for a low level, being stranded in the 20th century was hard. At least with Torchwood there was the occasional alien to talk to. And of course there was always the most enjoyable standby, sex.

 

*

 

All personnel of Torchwood One had some psychic training. Everyone had least enough training to see through psychic paper, though for the most part there was little else. Members of the archives, however, tended to get the most training. After all, it was always difficult to tell what could cause the alien objects to react. Some of them required thoughts to turn on or, more importantly, turn off.

 

Members of Torchwood Three never received any training. It wasn’t out of malice; there just wasn’t any point. When Jack became in charge there was no need for Doctor detecting measures and he knew if he tried to teach anything it would only lead to disaster. Low level for the 51st century was still far higher then most in the 21st.

 

But Ianto Jones had be trained by One. He would hardly call himself high level but he was observant and worked hard. He used every trick in his arsenal to get into Three and after Lisa, he had felt he had nothing left. But then something happened.

After Mary he brushed up on his mental exercises and started to notice Jack was reaching out. It wasn’t thoughts, or even feelings, not really. But every time he spoke or touched it was there. He probably wouldn’t have noticed except Jack, after so long alone, was doing the mental equivalent of shouting. It was difficult to understand, almost like a different language.

But Ianto was patient and good at putting things together. So he waited and listened. And eventually, slowly and somewhat clumsily, he reached back.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Transferred from FF.net, first published Sep 29, 2012


End file.
